Process of making steel deck and channel beams



J. L. PFAU, Jr.-

PROGESS OF MAKING STEEL DECK AND CHANNEL BEAMS. No. 398,027. Patented N0v. 20, 1888.

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I NITED STATES ATENT rrrca.

JOHN L. PFAU, JR, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

PROCESS F MAKING STEEL DECK AND CHANNEL BEAMS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 393.027, dated November 20, 1888.

Application filed August 11, 1887. Serial No. 246.750.

, To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, J OHN LoUrs PFAU, J r., a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, county of Cook, and State of Illinois, have invented or discovered new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Steel Deck and Channel Beams; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, concise, and exact description thereof, reference being bad to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification, in which like letters indicate like parts.

Making deck and channel beams-of steel is a much more difficult operation than the making of them of iron, because by the present process steel, being of so much harder texture, re quires a great many more passes of less grad uation, and because they cannot be rolled from the ingot in one heat, but require reheating. According to the present process the ingot is first bloomed in a blooming-train, which requires some fifteen or sixteen passes between adjustable rolls to reduce the ingot to the necessary shape preparatory to running the same through the roughing and finishing rolls. This blooming process absorbs the heat of the ingot to such an extent that before passing through the said roughing and finishing rolls it must be reheated in order to make the necessary seven or eight passes therethrough. This process is therefore a very expensive one, requiring, as it does, a separate engine for the blooming-train, a double plant of heating-furnaces or soaking-pits, double the amount of fuel for heating ingots necessary for other classes of work, and a double complement of workmen. It is also very expensive, for the reason that in the manufacture of these deck and channel beams each size of deck or channel beams requires a complete change of rolls for making the necessary fifteen or sixteen passes of the blooming process and seven or eight passes of the roughing and finishing processes, and for the further reason that this frequent change of rolls is both laborious and expensive and causes great delay to the regular progress of work.

The object of my invention is to simplify the manufacture of steel deck and channel beams, so as to dispense with about one-half the machinery used in the present process, to save about one-half the labor at present re- (No model.)

quired, to dispense with one-half of the heating-furnaces and the fuel necessary to operate them, to avoid the loss occasioned by the burniug of the flanges of the deck and channel beams, which frequently happens under the old process when reheating the ingots preparatory to the roughing and finishing them, and to produce a better deck or channel beam than is possible under said old method. This I accomplish, rst, by casting a dense steel ingot of peculiar shape; second, by dispensing with the blooming process, and instead preparing the ingot for the roughing and finishing rolls by manipulating it with a set of graduated dies under a powerful steam-hammer, and, third, by finishing the beams by eight passes through the roughing and finishing rolls.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a cross-sectional view of a deck or channel beam ingot mold. Fig. 2 is a cross-section of a steel ingot. Fig. 3 is a cross-section of the same after hammering. Figs. 4. and 5 show crosssect'ions, respectively, of finished deck and channel beams.

It is a well-known fact that steel, when cast in the ingot in the common manner, is of a spongy nature, being filled with small gasholes formed in pouring, which renders it a comparatively weak metal. IIeretofore rolling has been resorted to to eliminate this porousness from channel-beam ingots and to give them the necessary texture and fiber whereby strength is developed. It-has, however, been demonstrated that a very large per cent. of this porousness can be eliminated by improved methods of pouring the metal into the mold, or by preparations in the mold itself, whereby greater density is obtained and the necessity for extensive blooming is avoided.

In casting my ingots in a peculiar shaped mold, which I will describe more at length hereinafter, I take advantage of this latter fact and lute the inside walls of the mold with a gaseous preparation and deposit a given quantity of another gaseous preparation in the bottom of the same. As the hot liquid steel is poured into the mold, the preparation in the bottom rises to the surface, and, combining with the preparation with which the sides thereof areluted,absorbs the gases in the metal itself and prevents spongincss or piping, thus rendering the ingot much more dense than has The mold Ahas its heretofore been the case.

sides slightly inverted or curved inward and its corner edges connecting the curved side surfaces thereof, and the plane flat top and bottom are rounded, substantially as shown in Fig. 1, and this shape is preserved its entire length. After the mold has been prepared, as heretofore explained, and the metal poured into it, the ingot cast is substantially shaped as shown in Fig. 2. The ingot thus cast is, after heatingin aheating-furnace, immediately subjected to the action of a series of graduated dies under apowerful steam-hammer, to which it is fed automatically or otherwise as rapidly as the action of the dies will permit. These dies are graduated from the shape the obverse of the shape of the ingot, as shown at either side of line X X, Fig. 2, to the obverse of the shape of the ingot, as shown at either side of the line Y Y, Fig. 3.

The hammering of the ingot from the shape shown in Fig. 2 to the shape shown in Fig. 3, it is well known, improves the quality of the steel in developing a firmer texture than can be obtained by blooming. Besides improving the quality of the steel, the hammering of the ingots in the manner described is accomplished in much less timein fact, in not much more, if, indeed, any more, than is necessary to make about three passes through the rolls.

After the ingot has been hammered, as above described, it is reduced to the perfect shape and complete deck or channel beam by the roughing and finishing rolls. The hammering and roughing and finishing of the'steel deck and channel beam are thus accomplished in one and the initial heat, thus saving, as heretofore asserted, one-half expense of the plant and about one-half of the labor, besides avoiding the possibility of loss by reason of the flanges of the ingot being burned,as when reheated by the old process.

In addition to the disadvantages of the old process, I would state that its use of the rolls for the purpose under consideration is not as systematic as it might be, because they are not arranged with a view to the greatest economy possible so far as the number of rolls used is concerned. Under said old process different rolls for channel-beams are used for deckbeams, thus doubling the complement of rolls necessary in a plant. This doubling up of the number of rolls required for such purpose I avoid by reducing one side of the deck-beam only at one passage, the return passage coming directly above the last pass, and so on to the finish. To make the channel-beam on the same grooved roll, I remove the middle roll and insert a plain cylindrical roll having mounted thereon a plain collar of a width and of a projection graduated to reduce the web of the channel-beam ingot only. This I can easily do, as the hammering process effectually forces the metal into the flanges,and to a very great extent relieves the rolls of this difficult task. In accomplishing this result'I require three rolls for the roughing-train for the deckbeam and (in addition) one center roll for channel-beams, all being of medium size and provided with two grooves. In the finishing-train I require three rolls for heavy deck-beams and three rolls for the light deck-beams, and, in addition, two center rolls, one each for the light and heavy channel-beams. These rolls are all medium-sized with two grooves. Thus I use a total of twelve rolls having a total of twenty-fourgrooves,to accomplish which, under the old process, requires twenty-four rolls having a total of sixty grooves.

In Fig.6 I have shown another form of steel ingot which I apprehend can be used and reduced to shape under my process nearly,if not fully,as well as the ingotshownin Fig. 2. The only material difference, as will be seen, is that in this modified ingot Icurve the sides inward, top and bottom, as well as the right and left sides.

\Vhat I claim as new is- 1. The method of making deck and channel beams from ingots of the form substantially of that shown in Fig. 2 by first reducing them by hammering to the form shown in Fig. 3, and then rolling them to completion.

2. An ingot for steel deck and channel beams castin a one-piece mold havingitssides slightly curved inward, its top and bottom surfaces flat, and its corners connecting the side surfaces with the top and bottom rounded.

3. A steel ingotfor deck and channel beams having its transverse dimensions contiguous to the top and bottom greater than that of the con- 10o nccting-web, as and for the purpose set forth.

JOHN L. PFAU, JR.

In presence of--- JAMES H. COYNE, FRANK D. THOMASON. 

